ISAA – International Symposium on Adjuvants for Agrochemicals

ISAA 2010 was held at the Campus of the Technical University of Munich in Freising, Bavaria, Germany, during August 16-20, 2010. ISAA 2010 provided the most recent knowledge on adjuvant research, development and application. It also offered a trade exhibition and excellent facilities for business meetings. An educational workshop on key features and mode of action of adjuvants was available as well. A number of field tours and social events completed the scientific programme.

ISAA 2010 was well supported with over 450 delegates(from over 140 companies/institutions) from 38 countries. 30 international companies sponsored the symposium and AgroPages was the Media Partners.

The conference comprised over 100 contributions of which 51 papers had been peer reviewed. The papers were divided into the following 4 sections:

Formulation and adjuvant technology.
Biological performance, use and application.
Physical interactions in liquid transfer systems.
Modeling, methods, and mode of action.

During the symposium over 50 posters were presented, and a Trade Exhibition was held with 24 of the leading international companies supplying surfactants, adjuvants and other services to the global agrochemical industry.

The Keynote speaker was Professor Josef Reichholf who gave a somewhat controversial and challenging talk on the impact of climate change on biosystems. Prof. Reichholf showed that, while there had always been big changes in Summer and Winter temperatures from year to year, there had been no statistically significant increase in temperatures in Southern Germany since 1780. Animals and plants in Germany have to cope with an annual temperature range of about 50°C. The normal state of forests and vegetation in the world is that an area the size of Australia is burning every year. For biosystems Professor Reichholf concluded that temperature is not as important as rainfall and rain distribution. Looking back in history over the last 1,000 years it is clear that climate cooling in the past has brought the bad times for people, while warm periods have been the good times. 

In the Plenery session, Axel Heinemann of The Boston Consulting Group spoke on Megatrends in Agriculture. He said that agchem products are forecasted to grow by 2% per annum, while the global “green” market will grow at 14% per annum. The number of generic companies will increase and take a higher share of the market. One of the major trends will be products to combat water stress in plants due to water shortages in many regions of the world.

Erno Bouma of Agro Meteorological Advisory Service showed some interesting correlations between leaf temperature and dew point with biological activity.

Scott Tann of Huntsman reviewed the classification of adjuvants by type in the USA and how they could be tested using ASTM methods in the USA or CIPAC methods in Europe. NPE ethoxylates are still being used in the USA (banned now in Europe) but the EPA is now looking at their environmental toxicity. In the USA most adjuvants are used for tank mixing, whereas in Europe the trend is to develop adjuvants which can be built into formulations.

James Messina of Exponent, USA gave an overview of requirements of inerts for non-food use and for spraying on to food crops.  Inserts in products for food use require a tolerance or an exemption for the requirement of a tolerance for EPA approval. At the moment tank mix adjuvants are not included in the EPA review, but should be tested with the pesticide product to get approval for use on the product label.

History of ISAA

ISAA is the international society for formulators and other professionals involved in the research and development of agrochemical adjuvants, The first International Symposium on Adjuvants for Agrochemicals was held in 1986 at Brandon (Manitoba, Canada) where some hundreds of agchem specialists met each other and discussed the performance, prospects and use of adjuvants with agrochemicals. Since then ISAA has been held every three years in various parts of the world.

Year	Location	Chairman
1986	Brandon, Manitoba, Canada	Paul Chow
1989	Blacksburg, Virginia, USA	Chester Foy
1992	Cambridge, UK	Peter Holloway
1995	Melbourne, Australia	Harry Combellack
1998	Memphis, Tennesee, USA	Allen Underwood
2001	Amsterdam, The Netherlands	Hans de Ruiter
2004	Cape Town, South Africa	Mike North
2007	Columbus, Ohio, USA	Jim Hazen
2010	Freising, Bavaria, Germany	Peter Baur

Since the first symposium - characterised by spirit and purity of academia and organised by enthusiastic volunteers - times have changed. The first ISAA proceedings have been published as books by CRC Press, as an issue of Pesticide Science and finally as independent paper publications. Since the ISAA 2004 symposium, proceedings have been published on CD. For the first time in 2010 an ISAA symposium was fully organised by ISAA Society, in order to continue and improve formats and standards. ISAA 2007 already had shown the need for a professional organisation of the symposia.
 
Two decades after the first ISAA symposium the adjuvant field too has changed. Application and sale of adjuvants have reached a mature stage and experts expect a future for knowledge based and tailor made products. Last but not least the importance of generics has rapidly increased, which is reflected by the growing interest in formulation topics. The boom of generics too has contributed to the growing popularity of ISAA symposia.

(Report written by Alan Knowles, FORM-AK Ltd, UK.)

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